Mr. Bernard Gloster:

I take the general thrust of the question. I am pretty familiar with the impact of regulation on community beds and traditional community hospitals and public hospitals. Senator Conway will recall my travails in Ennis many years ago on the same issue. To be fair to HIQA, it has been given a job in law by the Oireachtas, with regulations and standards rightly focused on the care and dignity of people. At the same time, the capability of the HSE to get its stock up to that standard is a huge pressure. There is always a balance between how many beds one can keep versus how one maintains the focus on the dignity of patients. The loss of 240 beds is an enormous hit. However, there have been improvements in community beds.